‘Going around the houses’ 😆

I was busy as a busy thing, going in and out of my greenhouse, yesterday, when something caught my eye. It was a very small, very vivid, bright, blue flower. I looked and then looked again but I couldn’t think for the life of me what it was. It seemed to be a number of plants all rolled into one: Forget me not, Brunnera, Borage, Comfrey, Anchusa, to name a few. I knew that it wasn’t any of these...so what was it?

I was stumped. I didn’t plant it in that place, either! So it’s must have seeded there.

So, this called for some proper, serious, investigative, research skills! 

Now, in times gone by, this would’ve meant delving into the Encyclopaedia Britannica. When I was young, my dad invested in a set ( complete with a massive atlas of world maps...as well as the specially designed bookcase, with the slot in the back for the atlas!) and my mum also bought the set of Children’s Britannica. So we were fortunate to be well resourced and we were very much a ‘book family’. And I absolutely loved that method of research...(which is sadly lacking nowadays, as all one has to do is click a button or tap a key.)

Being avid readers we also belonged to the local library. Many a time, I would also borrow the Stanley Gibbons Stamp Catalogue and I would often struggle home with this heavy monstrosity in the hope that I would discover, in my collection, a rare and valuable stamp! Not that good old Stanley Gibbons would be able to help me now with this plant! What Stanley knew about British wild flowers could probably be written on the back of a ...err...postage stamp! 😂 😂😂 (Actually, I think he knew more about wives...he appears to have had a string of them!  😆) 

Anyway, talking of books ...my grandma’s collection was always of great appeal. She, too, was an avid reader and she adored books. My mum always said that she treasured books so much as she could barely afford to buy a book when she was young. However, when she did manage to save a few pennies, she would go to Gloucester market and browse there, choosing very carefully. For me, as a young child, visits to her house were a treat as far as books were concerned; I still have one or two very old books that belonged to her. One of them in particular was this one:

Written by Cecily Mary Barker, this was one of my favourite books. My tatty copy is falling to pieces because of the number of times that I read it and the number of times it was read before me; it’s been well read and so obviously well loved.

The other reason I loved my visits to see my Grandma, was because she knew the names of every wild flower and she would take me around the lanes, near to where she lived, in a place called Kingskerswell, (between Newton Abbot and Torquay) and she would teach me the names of the wild flowers in the hedgerows, the verges, and beyond these, the meadows. I was privileged to have had that kind of childhood and I remember those days so well. As I grew older, I never went anywhere without an iSpy book tucked into my pocket..usually of a nature theme..wild flowers, trees, butterflies, fungi etc etc etc. Being surrounded by beautiful woodland as well as richly inhabited heathland, allowed nature to always be ‘in your face’, making her presence felt at all times. 

I know...I’m going all around the houses to get to the point of this blog post: My newly discovered plant!  Be patient! Especially you in the cheap seats! Stop heckling! 😂 😂😂 

To continue...Groundsel it was most definitely NOT! And my Grandma is no longer around to help me. So I had either to rely on my trusty, ‘Concise British Flora in Colour’ by Keble Martin (BTW, he also has a connection with South Devon...but I’ll leave that for another time otherwise you’ll be yawning and saying, ‘Get a flamin’ move on Sal, we don’t have all day’).....or take the lazy ‘sit and look online’ option.

In this instance, I took the lazy option to ‘Google’ ...and hey presto! Woo hoo...! Success!

Many paragraphs later, I can tell you I have discovered that this plant is:

Green Alkanet, Pentaglottis sempervirens

You might have already known this! But just to remind you... as you’ve no doubt forgotten what the plant looked like...as it seems like a week ago when you started to read this post...😆..here it is again...

Quite common in The British Isles, the ‘sempervirens’ means ‘always alive’ or ‘evergreen’; ‘Alkanet’ comes from an Arabic word for Henna; Pentaglottis is from Greek, meaning ‘five tongues’ ( which I believe refers to the five flower petals). 

And guess what? This plant belongs to the family Boraginaceae...as does the Forget-me-not, Borage, Anchusa, Comfrey and Brunnera! So, I was almost there in my assessment!

This plant likes to grow in most conditions but it is a serious weed in some places as it’s very hard to get rid of ....because it has a very deep tap root. AND...its coarse hairs can cause a rash. Just saying!  Use gloves! Take care! 🧤 

Nevertheless, I’m leaving my specimen exactly where it is because it’s in a confined space and it has WILDLIFE VALUE. Apparently, it is one of the food plants of the Scarlet Tiger Moth; its leaves are used by leaf mining flies as well as a micro moth and the flowers attract Orange Tip Butterflies, Hoverflies and various species of Solitary bees. It is a valuable part of nature.

So there you have it...I hope that you enjoyed this post and ‘Well done’ if you reached the end!

I’m now off to have a cuppa..and contemplate what it might be like to have 5 tongues! 🤣😂🤣